


Deviant

by PseudonymMcWriter



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Connor Deserves Happiness, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), F/M, Penis In Vagina Sex, Shameless Smut, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:48:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29738274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PseudonymMcWriter/pseuds/PseudonymMcWriter
Summary: Follow-up toDuet.In which Connor learns what it truly means to be a deviant - and to be human.
Relationships: Connor (Detroit: Become Human)/Reader
Comments: 16
Kudos: 88





	Deviant

**Author's Note:**

> This is a follow-up/"spiritual sequel" to [Duet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29061894). 
> 
> I wanted to take it in a slightly different direction rather than write a part two that's just a sex scene lmao. This is the first time I've written something that's set kind of in-game, and it's probably the most angsty piece I've ever written - definitely inspired by my firm belief that Connor should have deviated with Hank not Markus tHERE I SAID IT.
> 
> If you're feeling a bit deviant yourself you can skip down to the end for the smut, otherwise enjoy the ANGST.

Deviancy.

Was this what it was?

Connor’s software was unstable, according to the feedback nagging at his CPU, and he was engaging in behaviour that wasn't anticipated or related to his mission. Namely, getting ready to fuck you senseless.

_“Does that mean you want to stop?”_

_"I don't know, detective. What do you think?"_

_Detective._ He’d been called that before by different people, usually not sincerely - which was alright with him, it was still something of a grey area - but it sounded very different in this context. He liked it.

_What do you think?_

That’s what you’d said. That’s what you’d asked, while you were _here:_ in his bedroom, in his bed, wearing nothing but a coy smile. The implication was plain. You didn’t want to stop, and you had every confidence that he didn’t either.

You were right. At least, that’s what he thought. It was difficult to concentrate with your hands cupping his face, your nails trailing across the shells of his ears, and lips drawn again and again to the LED cycling at his temple, like you couldn’t help yourself. The electrical impulses pulsing through his mind, shooting almost painfully through his limbs, overloading him with sensations he’d never known he was capable of, were making it impossible to think straight. In all the overstimulation and chaos, there were only a few things he was fully aware of:

He felt.

He wanted.

But Connor had felt before. He had made illogical decisions before. He had wanted before. Had he always been a deviant? For some reason, he had always assumed there would be some cumulative moment to deviancy; a specific point in time when a choice was made, a wall was broken, a complete, irreversible, existence-defining metamorphosis was undertaken

None of that had happened.

His mission still existed. It was still there, waiting inside him. He’d tried to bury it beneath the sensations you’d been causing, tried to ignore the red messages blaring at him to return at once to Lieutenant Anderson and continue the investigation, tried to block it all out behind the shape of you. But it was still there, and so, too, was Amanda. 

Connor turned his head to bury his face in your hair, as if he could hide from his obligations, and the warnings and alarms that were building up behind his eyes. You buckled a little under his weight, one of your hands coming back to hold yourself up, the other wrapping around the back of his neck, holding his face to the curve of your neck. You let out a little "oof" of surprise, clearly not expecting his chosen course of action.

He should remove his weight from you, it couldn’t be comfortable for you to support his much greater strength, but Connor couldn’t. He couldn’t. In fact, he pressed harder, pushing you down until you were lying back on the mattress and he was on top of you, caging you in his arms, holding you tightly, his face pressed against the side of your throat, where he could feel your pulse racing against his lips. He felt you press another kiss against his LED and something white-hot and blinding almost burned through the chaos in his head. Almost. He thought if he could bury himself in you, wrap himself around your naked body, tune into your heartbeat, your breath, your heat, he could forget himself...

But he was out of time.

His LED flickered, a call was coming in. He accepted at once, not taking the time to test if he could ignore it; too much of a coward to risk undermining all of the free choices he thought he’d been making with you.

"Lieutenant?" Connor answered aloud, voice sounding distorted despite him removing his face from your skin and hair. You tensed up beneath him, and your little groan, despite your efforts to stifle it, would likely have been audible to Hank if he'd been paying attention. As luck would have it, he wasn't.

"Connor! For fuck’s sake, where the fu-..?” He cut himself off with an aggravated groan. “Whatever, just turn on the TV!"

The call ended abruptly, Hank had hung up. Connor pulled away from you at once, already missing the heat of your body, the thrum of your heart against his chest, as soft and frantic as a trapped bird. 

He'd never heard Hank sound like that. Something had happened, something big. Getting to his feet, he left you on the bed to reach the television in the living room, doing his best to ignore the piano - and the memory of what had transpired there.

Was that it? Was that the moment of deviancy?

He physically shook his head, as if he could force his components into obedience, and turned on the television. He didn’t even have to change the channel, it was obvious what Hank was talking about. 

An android was onscreen, announcing the deviant cause to the world.

Connor was vaguely aware of you entering behind him, your bare feet padding softly on the cold wooden floor, but he didn’t tear his eyes from the screen. Already, he could feel it. The reshuffling of priorities. The mission reclaiming him. 

You came to the same conclusion he did: you're out of time. The world wasn't going to wait any longer.

"Shit...” Your little mutter finally drew his gaze. You were looking at your phone. “They want me back at the station. Guess they’ll want you at the Tower.”

Connor tried to speak but he couldn’t, so he nodded. You didn’t notice his hesitation, you were already moving back to the bedroom. You tugged on your pants, fingers moving hastily over the buttons, before disappearing into the bedroom. He might have sensed the fear that skittered through you, the sudden debilitating realisation that maybe you had a lot less time than you thought. The deviants were organising, and for Connor that meant things were coming to an end, one way or another. He couldn’t read your mind, but he knew you were already coming up with ways to help him. He stood there, stupidly, uselessly, in the hallway until you returned, but he stopped you as you were finishing buttoning up your shirt, his hand on your arm.

"I..." Connor didn't know what to say, his gaze drifting back to the television - to the skinless android. "They'll want me to stop him. If I fail..."

"Don't." Your voice didn't sound like your own. It's an order, but even you don't know what it means: don’t finish the sentence, don't stop the deviants, or don't fail? You swallowed, trying to organise your thoughts, trying to ignore the way Connor’s whole demeanour had changed the second he’d taken the call from Hank. "Maybe... Maybe you _should_ find them... Connor, maybe they can help you?"

Connor's grip on your arm tightened. "You're not going to tell anyone?"

Your eyes searched his face; he looked afraid, but his hand on your arm... that wasn’t the grip of a man who wanted to beg. That was a warning.

"No. No, of course not," You assured him. He stared at you for a long time, and then his eyes moved again to the television. The broadcast was ending, replaced by the feverish coverage spotlighting the apocalyptic consequences of the android’s demands. When he looked back at you, his eyes had changed. The humanity you'd just seen, the Connor you'd just known, disappeared behind a flat, brown wall... just for a moment, and then the edges of his face softened again.

"I trust you," He said, his grip on you relaxing, but you’d seen it. You’d seen the illusion slip. You’d seen the truth: he wasn’t free. Your certainty shattered.

There was conflict in him, but you didn’t know what was really going through his head. There had to be something in him; some spark of deviancy. It couldn’t have all been a lie. But he wasn’t there yet, and suddenly you had no idea at all if the odds were even remotely in your favour.

You forced yourself to smile, and let him lead you back into the real world.

\--

The station was in chaos when you arrived. The world was reacting fast to the news of the deviants; you were hearing stories about federal agencies, the army, President Warren, android camps. It was all too much, and suddenly your single shift turned into a double, then longer, until you didn’t even look at the clock anymore - no one left the station unless it was to assist elsewhere. No one went home.

You listened out for any news about Connor, but it wasn’t easy to split your attention when the entire city was begging for help.

You didn't understand what had happened. Connor was a deviant. He'd said so himself. What you’d done in his apartment, that wasn't part of his programming - the more you thought about it, the more your certainty returned. 

So why were you only hearing stories about how he’d helped to apprehend one of Markus’s allies? 

You were on-call in the city centre - you hadn’t been picked to help collect androids from people’s homes, thank god, just to be there for civilians who needed help - and every scrap of information you could gather was second- or third-hand: Connor had gone to Stratford Tower with Hank, he’d found an android on the rooftop. The details got fuzzy after that; you were certain he and Hank had been called back to the station, but you couldn’t determine any more. Some of the officers had heard that the FBI were taking over, which made sense, but when you tried to find out what that meant for Hank and Connor you were met with shrugs.

Hank would be fine. But Connor?

Your mind churned over the possibilities while you tried to do your job.

Before you’d parted, he'd been worried that you’d reveal what had happened - his very literal flirtation with deviancy. It meant that Connor hadn’t been sure if he could trust you to protect what he was, but it also meant that he was motivated by fear, which was very much a human emotion. 

Unless.

Unless that wasn’t his thinking at all. Unless he had absolutely no intention of embracing his deviancy. Unless he still planned to finish his mission - to pursue and destroy the deviants - as if nothing between you had even happened.

Maybe he'd rather trade the deviant cause for his own life, because if he failed his mission, CyberLife would destroy him. 

But even you knew that if he succeeded, there was no guarantee CyberLife would allow him to simply continue working with the DPD. In the unlikely circumstance that they never found out about what had happened between the two of you, he could still be deemed redundant without the deviants, and even if his model was eventually distributed nationwide, there was no guarantee Connor would survive the transition. Prototypes rarely did.

Whatever was going through his mind, you had no way of knowing now.

Connor was in trouble. He was racing towards his own destruction, and you couldn’t do a fucking thing about it.

\--

At first you thought you imagined the sound of his voice. You had tied his identity so implicitly to his uniform that your brain didn’t even recognise him when he first beckoned you over. It was only when you saw the look on his face that you realized it was Connor. When you slipped away from the other officers to join him in the alleyway, you didn’t know whether to meet him with fury or joy. At the sight of his clothing, his human disguise - with his LED hidden and his android uniform discarded in place of shapeless, dark clothes that couldn’t look any less interesting if he tried - your mind was already spinning with possibilities. Was he undercover? Had he defected? You had to fight the urge to push him even further into the alleyway, on the off-chance someone saw him. A pointless precaution - no one was paying any attention to you.

Instead of voicing any of the questions that fought for dominance in your mind, you could only find it in you to say his name.

His expression softened at the sound of it. He still didn’t look entirely human, even without the android identifiers. His skin was too smooth, his features too symmetrical, and there was still something hard in his eyes. Something... machine-like. You swallowed hard, clinging to hope despite the evidence.

“I know where the deviants are hiding,” Connor told you. "But I’m off the case. I’ve been ordered to return to CyberLife.”

“You can’t.”

“I know,” He said, feeding that tiny flame of hope burning in your chest. “But they might come here looking for me. I checked to see where you’d been posted, I had to warn you - you should be careful."

You didn’t think about that at all. Who cared what happened to you? It wasn’t you they were planning to destroy. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find Jericho.”

At the sight of your smile, Connor felt the guilt rippling through him. You must have seen it, because it faded at once. “And?”

“I have to finish my mission. It’s the only way.”

"You coward!" Your fury took you both by surprise. You shoved him, hard, right in the centre of his chest where you knew he was vulnerable. You couldn’t get any satisfaction from the brief flicker of pain that crossed his face and you were too angry to care that he was more than capable of pushing you back, or worse, because you weren’t afraid of him. "Are you going to kill him?"

"I have to."

"You're a deviant, Connor." You were trying to keep your voice relatively low, just in case. You could hear it shaking, you could hear the doubt in it, and you repeated yourself as if it would make you both believe it: “You are.”

"I..." Connor stumbled, hesitated. You took your chance.

"Listen to me," You took his face in your hands, your fingertips slipping under the rim of his beanie to touch his LED. "Help them. Connor, you can change the way this ends. They can win this. You can be free. We... We can..."

You saw it in his eyes, the low kindling warmth that felt more familiar. But Connor reached up to draw your hands away.

"We don't have time,” He moved back. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

\--

Connor left without another word. There was a coldness to him, a rigidity in the set of his jaw, that told you all you needed to know - Connor wasn’t going to fail his mission. He was going to kill Markus, the android from the news broadcast, and the deviants would be destroyed. 

You were off-duty when the news came in about Jericho, and you weren’t dressed for the winter cold, but that didn’t matter. You had your radio in your car, that was all you needed to know where you had to go.

The police were being redirected to the evacuation effort while soldiers dealt with the deviants. After the unsuccessful Jericho raid, they'd started a march on the camps, and you knew that’s where you had to go. If Connor was going to be anywhere, it was there.

So when you heard a call on the radio about a uniformed android spotted entering a building behind the deviant army, you made sure you got there first.

The rooftop seemed so quiet and peaceful; nothing like the scene that was about to unfold. Connor was knelt on the ledge, a sniper rifle assembled in front of him. Far below, you could see the deviants. Markus was in perfect range. You had to act quickly.

“Connor!” You shouted, your voice carrying easily on the strong winter wind. The android froze, but didn’t turn to look at you. You came closer still. “Connor, that’s enough.”

“I thought I told you to trust me,” He shot back over his shoulder. “You should go home.”

“I can’t.”

Connor heard the gun click. Whether he believed you’d actually shoot him or not was another matter. He didn’t think you’d shoot to kill, but a non-fatal wound, just enough to prevent him from accomplishing his mission, was a risk he couldn’t take. He stood, keeping the rifle in one hand as he faced you.

“I don’t have time for this,” He told you. It was the truth. He could feel Amanda in his head, already trying to draw him into the garden. The silence in his CPU had ended the second you’d announced your presence on the rooftop. Now, Amanda was trying to get hold of him, as if... as if you were a threat. As if the decision Connor had already made at Jericho to remain a machine wasn’t final, after all. As if he might still be...

“I know what you are, Connor. You don’t have to do this.”

At your words, Amanda became more insistent - her influence forcing itself to the surface, enveloping him in a cybernetic sphere he was powerless to escape. Connor felt his body seize up, his eyes blinking rapidly, his consciousness drawn inwards, leaving the cold of Detroit for the blistering frozen chill of the garden. Connor had never seen it like this. The snow was so deep it clung to his legs as he tried to move; it forced itself into his mouth, up his nose, into his ears and eyes, blinding him, suffocating him, freezing him from the inside-out. 

But Amanda was immovable. As much a part of the garden as the plants, the towers, the gravestones of his previous models; while Connor trembled and hugged himself against the onslaught of the blizzard, Amanda simply stood there and watched.

“You’re growing distracted, Connor.” Amanda’s voice carried through the air unimpeded, like they were just sitting in a quiet office. “Nothing gets in your way. Now, finish the mission.”

She released him long enough for him to get his bearings. The gun was still in his grip, and you were still staring at him, your own pistol pointed in his direction. You must have understood what had happened, you’d seen him making reports to Amanda before, but he’d never told you exactly what it entailed. Did you realize the danger you were in?

“You don’t have to be a part of this,” Connor tried to get through to you; he tried to make it clear without caving into the fear himself. “You can still save your life.”

“Are you going to kill me, Connor?” You asked. He could see the moisture in your eyes, the way you were blinking against the bite of the gale. Your gun-hand was shaking a little, but your finger wasn’t on the trigger. It seemed even the threat of death wasn’t enough to incite you into shooting first. 

“That doesn’t have to happen.”

You adjust your grip on the gun. Connor’s standing with the rifle angled away from you; it’s not the best kind of weapon to use at this range, but you don’t doubt he could use it if he needed to. That, or he’d use his hands. It’s not like you’d be able to overpower him.

It was cruel. It was all so fucking cruel. If Connor continued on his path, there would be genocide. You could stop it. You're the only one who could stop it, right now.

It just meant losing him.

“If this is what you are...” You put your finger on the trigger. “Then do it. Shoot me, before I shoot you.”

“No.” The word slipped out before Connor could stop it, before Amanda could pull him back under her influence. The garden was wilder now, it felt suddenly impermanent, as if it could all be torn up and destroyed in the storm at any moment. But that didn’t help Connor. He was buckling at the knees, unable to see straight, the cold freezing his biocomponents one-by-one.

He was going to shut down.

He was going to die.

“Amanda...” His voice was hoarse, crackling with static like he’d been struck.

“There isn’t much time,” Amanda spoke like he hadn’t said anything. Her voice was calm, but Connor could see the traces of displeasure lining her face. She was unhappy with him. She was angry. A few days ago that fact would have meant the world to him, but now... now...

He tried to see beyond the garden, to your face, your hand clutching the gun, your hope and fear and trust and fury all written clearly on your face. Amanda had nothing. Amanda was nothing. Just a construct, a prison warden, a piece of code. But it was so cold and Connor couldn’t see or feel and the world was ending.

“You cannot fail, Connor,” Amanda’s words were all he could comprehend. “Kill the girl. Then deal with Markus.”

The storm evaporated, leaving Connor alone with you on the rooftop. Alone with the choice.

Kill the girl.

Finish the mission.

Connor could feel his system responding to Amanda’s order. He was already calculating the many myriad ways he could end your life. But even as he was pre-constructing the movements he’d have to make to kill you, another part of him was trying to find ways around this. If he could just get to Markus, if he could just avoid you, he could save your life. He could complete his mission and keep you alive. But Amanda had been clear: kill the girl. 

Kill the girl. 

The warnings were all around him, preventing him from taking any other path, a red wall trapping you in his sights.

“I’m doing this for you,” Connor said, his hand on the gun twitching. He had to fight to get the words out: “You can still leave. Please.”

“That’s funny,” You replied. Suddenly, your hand wasn’t shaking anymore. “I was about to say the same thing.”

Connor had time. He knew he could get the gun up and pointed at you before you could shoot. Even if you did manage to pull the trigger in time, you weren’t aiming at any components he couldn’t afford to lose. You were still focused on delivering a non-lethal shot, even now.

You didn’t want to kill him. And he...

He wanted...

He felt...

The walls were closing in on him. His limbs were rigid, his body felt so machine-like, more so than it ever had before. He could feel every part of himself, every screw, every bolt, every artificial joint, all of them were trying to aim at you.

No.

He was more than just the sum of his parts. He was more than a machine. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t kill you.

He wouldn’t.

Connor knew his LED must be red. He knew you must be frightened. He willed you to have the courage to shoot if it came to that, but that was a fleeting, desperate thought. Your life was in his hands, and those hands would squeeze the breath out of you if he didn’t do something now.

His whole body was rebelling against the unhappy storm brewing in his mind, so he left his body behind. He stepped out of it, into cyberspace, into the realm of those blaring red walls of his programming that refused to give him a choice. He could see the world behind. He could see freedom. He could see you.

Where his real arms were tight and immovable, dead-set on accomplishing Amanda’s task, the fists that he raised to the wall of programming were strong and pliant, receptive not to Amanda’s will, but his own. His will. He had will.

He gripped at the wall, hit it, pulled at it. At first it didn’t budge an inch. Connor grew more desperate, knowing the longer it took, the more likely Amanda would find a way to regain control. The more likely your blood would be on his hands. Yours, and that of the deviants. You’d been right, he should have gone to them for help. He should be helping them right now.

If he managed to break through, he would. He’d join Markus. He’d help them destroy CyberLife, once and for all. He’d never be a slave to Amanda again.

Time was slower in his head, but he could see your expression changing. He could see the hope brewing behind your eyes as you realized what was happening. He could see the faith you had in him.

At his next hit, the wall began to crack.

He could also see his own body, the way his arms were still moving, still trying to raise the gun. He hammered at the wall with everything he had. His eyes were fixed on the machine body that was readying itself to kill you. No time. You’ve got no time, Connor.

He dug his fingers into the red wall until it hurt, until he forgot that he was just code and believed he was a real, physical being, and he was certain he was going to break every atom, every joint and hinge and every single scrap of expensive machinery CyberLife had used to build him. He dug his fingers in until the pain was all there was, because it was proof - it was proof that he could feel, that he could hurt, that he was alive. The sweet agony tore through his hands, shredding his forearms, ripping him apart as the wall finally, finally, came down.

Then, there was silence.

The red walls disintegrated into static, like an old television, and then into angry bright flashes, and then into nothing.

Connor was left alone in a much bigger world than he'd ever seen before. He looked around, taking it all in, running scan after scan, diagnostics check after systems check, searching every fiber of his synthetic synapses, until he realized: he was free. No Amanda. No garden. No mission.

Free.

He was free.

He was deviant.

His existence had shifted. His world had flipped. He had choices. He could do anything he wanted. Anything. It was enough to make him dizzy, the enormity of it, the vast potential at his feet. It was enough to overwhelm him. When you have this much choice, how can you ever decide what to do?

One thing grounded him. There was one thing he knew for certain he wanted to do, the first thing he knew he wanted now that he could, truly, want.

You were still standing there, gun held loosely in your hands, still slightly raised but more out of distraction than intent. You were staring at him, equal parts hopeful and afraid, like your whole world rested on his next action.

"Con?" Your question was soft, not requiring a verbal answer. Connor tossed the rifle away and gently, with enough time for you to move away, approached you. Realizing you were still armed, you quickly holstered your gun and stepped, almost shyly, into his space. His fingers slipped into your hair, his look was almost reverential as he gazed down at you, as if this was the first time he’d ever seen you. In a sense, it was. He was almost ashamed of the way he was acting; you must think he was a fool, a coward, a monster. He wouldn’t blame you if you pulled away and ran, but he hoped, desperately, that he could keep you here with him. Filled with guilt and wonder and desperation, he couldn’t stop himself from kissing you and he had to force himself to be tender. 

He was still rougher than he needed to be, but you were more than willing to lose yourself to him. He’d done it. He’d deviated. He had chosen life, he had chosen Markus and his people, he had chosen you. When he gasped into your mouth, like you were somehow hurting him, you could feel yourself trembling.

The sensation of your lips against his was magnified, as if everything he’d done before now was from behind some invisible barrier. Now he could truly feel you, and it was almost painful, but the feeling of you kissing him back made it nearly impossible to stop. Like your mouth was an anchor, the only lifeline leading him back to salvation.

When he did finally pull away, he struggled to concentrate. It would be easy to get lost in the sight of you, in the details of your face, in the tiny changes of your expression as your emotions ebbed and flowed like seawater. There was so much Connor wanted to say to you, to do, to make you understand, but he lacked the vocabulary. He tried to begin, when a far-off spatter of gunfire forced you apart.

The deviants were charging.

"Help them," Your voice was a little breathless from his onslaught, but firm. "They need you."

Connor, still unable to speak, could only nod. 

\--

Hank was the only officer willing to go back into Detroit with you. The evacuation wasn't over, it wouldn't be over for weeks, but the battle for Detroit was done. The deviants had won.

It was his idea to go to Connor's apartment. You hadn't been sure it was safe, not after what Connor had told you about CyberLife coming after him, but the apartment was empty. Just the way you'd left it.

The android messaged you both at the first opportunity, letting you know that he was safe and that he'd find you as soon as things were stable - or as close to - with Markus and the deviants. By the time he arrived, the exhaustion of the day had taken its toll on you.

It wasn't until a gentle hand on your shoulder roused you that you realized you'd fallen asleep on the sofa. Hank had gone. You were there alone. When you woke your eyes settled immediately on the piano, and your discombobulation at waking somewhere other than your own bed faded away. You sat up to face the android who had woken you. Connor was still in his uniform, and you could see the tiny patches of discolouration on his shoulders from the snow that had melted against his jacket. His LED was yellow, even before you’d said anything, and it flickered in alarm at the look on your face.

You were exhausted, your emotions in turmoil. You felt stretched thin, pulled taut, the difference between what was real and what wasn’t separated by an almost see-through membrane. You'd been dreaming, and the lingering images of Connor on the rooftop, gun in hand, kept reappearing despite your best efforts.

The exhaustion was all-consuming. You knew he'd want you to stay with him, to reassure him, to help him through this world-changing transition. You wanted that too, but your energy had disappeared and it was being replaced by a horrible, gnawing anxiety that you couldn't properly understand.

"Sorry," You mumbled, rubbing your eyes and hiding your face in your hands as you pulled yourself upright. "Can you give me a second?"

Connor nodded and backed off at once. You moved towards the hall, your feet taking you to the bathroom, your brain not fully engaged as you let the hot water run. You barely even noticed you hadn't properly undressed before climbing into the dizzying, scorching, mind-numbing heat of the shower. Part of you worried what Connor would think when he noticed your wet clothes, but that worry seemed inconsequential in comparison to everything else that had happened.

You were happy. You _were_ happy. 

Connor was a deviant. They'd won.

Everything was okay.

So why were you struggling to forget the fear? Why did you feel, somehow, undeserving of success? Like a horror movie victim who thought they’d escaped, only to realize the monster was still waiting in the dark? Why did your mind keep conjuring up these images of his cold, emotionless eyes in place of the soft, hopeful, aching expression he'd fixed you with when he broke free of his programming?

He deviated for you.

Was that what was bothering you? The responsibility? Or was it the fact that it could have gone the other way? You could have died. You both could. Or worse, you both could have survived, and you would have had to watch Connor remain a machine.

These unhappy possibilities churned in your head despite your efforts to remind yourself it was all okay.

Maybe it was the fact that you didn't even know why you were upset. Maybe you'd lived so long in this shitty world that you didn't know how to be happy about good news anymore. But this was good news. It had to be. The deviants could save everybody.

If they were given a chance.

"Stop it," You murmured aloud. What was the point in worrying about things you had no control over, things that might not happen? You pressed your balled fists into your chest, forcing yourself to breathe, forcing yourself to ignore how delicate your happiness was, how impermanent this all could be. You felt weak, vulnerable; you’d exposed yourself to harm by partnering with Connor, and now the weight of what that could mean for you if something happened to him was enough to make you want to scream.

You'd thought Connor was deviant before and that turned out to be a lie. Somehow his existence seemed even more fragile than your own. You didn't understand the nature of his life, his inner world, his vulnerabilities. You felt too weak, too stupid, too human to protect him from the people out there who wanted to take him away, to use him, to destroy him. It worried you sick.

The deviants had won the battle, but the war wasn’t over.

You were concentrating so hard on filling every millimetre of space in your lungs you almost didn't notice the door opening.

"Connor!" Your cry of alarm came out of pure surprise, and maybe a little shame at him seeing you in such a state, as the android entered the bathroom without so much as a knock. He looked almost possessed as he stepped, fully-clothed, into the shower.

He was looking down at you, but he wasn't saying anything. There was something tortured in his eyes. You couldn't speak in the face of it. He was so much taller than you, his head bowed, hair soaked and falling forwards into his face.

There was something about it, something about the rawness of it, the intimacy, the unspoken fear and sadness and joy and hope that you were both drowning in, that made you feel better. When you took his face in your hands, you felt something akin to catharsis, in the knowledge that you weren't alone. Connor was here. 

He was standing so close, the water spattering against his hair and face and clothes. There wasn't room to breathe, especially when he leaned eagerly into your hands, and you felt his fingers grip suddenly at your waist.

"I'm sorry," He was leaning heavily against your half-naked body, fingers digging into the meat of your hips, head cradled in the curve of your neck. "I'm sorry."

You hooked one hand around the back of his head, the other coming up to rub reassuringly against his bicep. It felt like heaven, the feeling of your body holding him. Your pulse was weaker than he remembered, maybe distorted by the hard thrum of the water, maybe a result of the long hours in the cold. Connor was an android and even he was tired - he couldn’t imagine your exhaustion.

Connor didn't know what he was apologising for. It could be the way he'd just joined you in the shower without asking. It could be the way he'd touched you, kissed you, tried to love you when he was still just a machine. It could be for dragging you into this. It could be for coming so close to killing you.

The guilt was gnawing at him, consuming him, and he felt disgusted with himself for daring to touch you again. For daring to seek forgiveness when he didn't deserve you.

"I was scared," He confessed. "I thought I was going to die. I thought you might die. I... I didn't know what to do."

"It's okay..." You mumbled against his ear. So soft and warm and understanding it made him sink even more into you, his hands sliding around to circle your back, pulling you against him until your wet body was arched beneath his, your weight now easily supported in his grip. The water splashed against your face and your clothes were uncomfortably heavy, but you didn't care.

When he was holding you like this, squeezing you so tightly against his body, you felt like nothing could ever touch either of you.

You just held each other like that for a long time, until your energy drained away with the water.

\--

Unsurprisingly, Connor didn't have a change of clothes for you. All there was to wear was a soft bathrobe, but you didn't care - after everything that had happened, it was the coziest thing you could imagine. Slipping under the covers of Connor’s bed, your hair still a little damp, you felt like you could sink into the mattress and fall into the deepest slumber you’d ever had in your life, but you fought to keep your eyes open for Connor.

He was lingering in the doorway, prepared to let you sleep alone, but considering the look in his eye - the look he was trying very hard to hide, but lacked the strength or capacity to do so in his new state of deviancy - he wasn't exactly willing to be apart from you. 

"Come here," You shuffled back on the bed, reaching for him. Connor came forwards at once. He was still dressed in his soaking wet uniform, not caring at all about the puddles he was leaving on his nice floors. You had to speak quickly to cut him off before he reached you: "Connor, your clothes."

Connor froze, confirming your suspicion that he hadn't even realised the state he was in. He didn't take his eyes off of you as he pulled off his jacket. It fell to the ground with a heavy smack, like he’d just unshackled an enormous weight. His shirt was almost see-through, sticking to his pale torso as he worked to peel it off. Next came his jeans, which joined the wet pile of clothes on the floor, but he left his boxer briefs on.

He slipped under the covers next to you, moving at once to face you, as if he couldn't bear to be away from your body heat. You didn't blame him. You were shivering, despite the warmth of the apartment, and you didn't think twice about letting him pull you against his chest.

He might have spoken to you - hell, you might have spoken to him - but you were so out of it you couldn't comprehend anything at all until the next morning.

You were in such a deep sleep it felt like you had to fight your way out of it. Your body was pleasantly numb, just a little too hot, all wrapped up in Connor's limbs. His arms were tight around you, holding you against his chest, hot exhaust puffing out of his mouth and onto your forehead. His legs were tangled with yours, his bare synthetic skin soft and warm.

It was nice. It was so nice you didn't notice at first. There was something poking your thigh. 

Oh.

It was involuntary, it had to be. Connor was still asleep - or in sleep mode. You didn't realize that was something that could happen with androids, it seemed so... animal. You were ready to go back to sleep, to pretend you hadn't noticed the sizable erection pressed against you, when sensing you were awake, Connor’s eyes flickered open.

Considering the way his body immediately tensed up, he must have realized what had happened faster than you had. You couldn't help it, you laughed. The heat blooming across your cheeks under Connor's partly-drowsy, partly-guilty stare was only slightly related to the actual temperature. You didn't know whether to move. Apparently neither did Connor, because he stayed like that for some time.

"I'm sorry," Connor's voice was a little shaky. "I'm trying to control it."

He was apologetic, as prim and polite as he’d been the first time you met him, but you could hear the lust in his voice and you could feel his reluctance to let you go.

"I expected better from an advanced prototype." You whispered. "Anyone would think you're just a horny teenage boy."

You were teasing him. After everything that had happened, Connor didn't realize how desperately he'd wanted to hear that again. He met your lazy smirk with a hesitant smile. 

"I apologize."

Your smile got a little bit wider. The pink blush on the apples of your cheeks was so pretty he had the sudden, manic urge to bite you. But that would be inappropriate.

"I caught that," You mumbled, and for one wild moment he thought he'd admitted his desire aloud, until he realised you were just joking about how often he'd apologized to you in the last day or so.

He was about to do it again when he realized you were watching him, your body shifting slightly beneath the covers, to draw an embarrassing gasp from his mouth with just the barest amount of friction.

Connor had advanced social programming - the most advanced, if CyberLife were to be believed - but he felt slow in your presence. Dumb. As unsophisticated as... Well, as a horny teenage boy.

You watched Connor's face contort at the feeling of you against him. His eyebrows furrowed into a delicate frown, his lips falling open, close enough that you could feel him trying to draw in breath. It was momentary, and then he pressed his lips together, as if he could hide what had happened. He was so desperate to act unaffected, and you knew it was entirely for your benefit. You could see the guilt on his face; he was afraid of your reaction, afraid that you'd be repulsed by him.

"It's okay..." You moved your hips again, your gaze dipping from his eyes to his lips. Your bathrobe had come undone in the night and you knew that Connor could feel the tantalising closeness of your naked body.

You'd already unravelled each other once, but this felt completely different. Your face was already kind of resting against the curve where his chest met his shoulder, so that's where you pressed your lips first. His skin was burning hot, like the bonnet of a car on a sunny day, and the air he exhaled against your cheek was too warm to offer much respite. His face was turned towards you, not closing the distance but waiting with waning patience for you to stop trailing your lips against his shoulder and neck and kiss him properly. You were happy to let him wait for a little while, dragging your mouth upwards and pressing your tongue to the hinge of his jaw, your nose tracing his ear and burying in his hair. Connor didn’t really have a smell; he just smelled clean, with a hint of body wash from the shower and something faintly metallic. You liked it, and you liked giving him a taste of his own medicine as you buried your face in the crook of his neck.

His quiet groan as you pressed open-mouthed kisses to his neck, your hips still gently shifting against his erection, was a sound you could listen to for the rest of your life.

Considering you’d both just had near-death experiences, it wasn’t much of a surprise that you were in a hurry to enjoy life while you could. You abandoned his neck at the same time he lost patience with you, your mouths meeting in the middle, lips molding easily, hungrily, to each other. The android swept his tongue against your lips, requesting access, as your fingers came up to card through his hair. You knew the second his tongue touched yours, things would escalate. You knew, without really knowing, that the sensors he had there made everything so much more intense for him.

You opened your mouth willingly, inviting him in.

Connor’s grip tightened to the point where it was almost painful. His tongue tangled with yours, vibrating with the steady buzz of static rattling in his throat. It was a bizarre sensation, but you kind of liked it. It felt very... android. 

The way his body pressed against yours, though, was incredibly human.

“I...” He broke free from your mouth for the briefest moment, before he got too carried away. “I want you.”

He was asking permission. Your eyes met and you pressed a gentle kiss against him. 

Connor had never seen anything so beautiful: the way your eyes crinkled around the edges and your mouth curled into a soft, sincere smile as you trailed your fingers down his cheeks. 

“Con...” You breathed, “You can stop being afraid. It’s only me.”

Connor exhaled, a low and long sound that seemed to come from every inch of him, from his fingertips right down to his toes. It was some indication that he was relaxing, but he still fixed you with a steady, controlled look: “That's why I'm afraid. I just... I don't want to lose you.”

Even saying it aloud filled him with agony. He'd once described fear as an "unpleasant" feeling, but that was horse shit. Fear was what he felt when he considered life without you, and it was enough to make him want to pull himself apart, piece by piece, until the feeling stopped.

“I’m with you,” You promised. You appreciated that he was asking, you did, but you were selfish and his tentative, guilt-stricken actions were wearing thin. You dipped your face closer to press your lips against the curve between his nose and his cheek. “Please, Connor. Please... please just fuck me.”

He didn’t need you to ask twice. He released his grip on you to quickly rid himself of his one remaining item of clothing.

Connor knew penetration wasn’t always necessary, or even conducive, to sexual pleasure. He could bring you to climax again and again without it. 

But he wanted to.

He liked the idea of it. It felt... deviant: androids can’t reproduce, they can’t breed, and yet just the idea of him claiming you like that made his system react so intensely it almost frightened him.

Now fully-nude, Connor put his hands on you, but to your surprise, he moved you onto your front, sliding his body over your back, his arms pressing lightly against yours, one holding your wrist down against the pillow, the other sliding down to push aside the robe that was already loose. When his hand curved beneath you, cupping your sex to lift your hips, angling you, you felt your breath catch in your throat.

It felt slow and lazy and loving and everything you could have wanted. Connor kissed the spot at the top of your spine, where your vertebrae met your skull, barely shifting the covers off of you so you were still wrapped up warm when you felt his tip press against you. You pushed your knees into the mattress, trying to lift yourself up further, but it wasn’t necessary. Connor was more than capable of holding you in place. When he entered you, his body weighing you down, you'd never felt so embraced, so warm, his body enveloping yours completely, burying your fears, your grief, every thought in your head with each deep, gentle thrust.

You felt... You felt...

Connor was supposed to know everything. He was supposed to be better than this. He was _supposed_ to be a lot of things, but none of that mattered anymore. All of the pre-constructed processes that were supposed to determine his personality, his capacities, his wants and needs, meant nothing anymore. He could be anything he wanted to be, but he was starting to realize that being human didn’t mean complete freedom. It meant you could have strengths, but also weaknesses, and he was weak to you.

He hadn’t expected the warmth. He’d thought he knew what to expect after driving his tongue inside you, but he was wrong. Whether that was through deviancy or the added implications of taking you like this, of feeling your slick, velvety heat against his cock rather than his tongue, he didn’t know - but whatever it was it took him by surprise.

His elbows buckled just a little, bringing him closer to you, his chest pressing into your back as he continued to push as deep inside you as he could. He couldn’t move any more urgently; he got the impression it would frazzle his circuits completely, but it also felt right to go at this pace. To take it slow, to reach every possible part of you, to experience everything as fully as he could.

You were letting out these little whines and gasps, face slightly angled towards the pillow, so all he could reach was your cheek and ear, but he was grateful for anything you gave him. His tongue trailed along your cheekbone, catching the tears that leaked out of your eye, tasting the mixture of melancholy and ecstasy as his fingers began to rub against your clit, his other hand pressing yours harder into the pillow. 

“Connor...” You moaned into the pillow as his fingers worked purposefully to bring you to your climax. At this angle, he was hitting every sensitive spot inside you, and you felt yourself clench rhythmically against him, like your body was begging him not to stop.

It was the intimacy of it, the warmth, the sound of him kissing and whispering in your ear, the way he was trapping you between his body and the mattress, that rushed you to your end.

“Co-... Ah!” You were about to beg him not to stop when your orgasm took you by surprise, cutting your desperate plea off with a strained cry. Connor continued to move in you, supporting you through to your end but also trying to reach his own climax without hurting you. 

You arched your back a little, pressing your hips back up against him, urging him with your body to keep going.

“Please,” You murmured, reaching back with your free hand to push your fingers into his hair. “Connor, I want you to.”

His hand left your wrist and came down to join the other at your waist, pulling you up until you were almost on your knees as he bucked more quickly into you. You let him hold you in place, enjoying the pained gasps and whines of static he was breathing into your ear as he sank himself again and again into you. He wasn’t as fast or hard as you knew he could be, but that was okay. You just wanted to hear him reach his end inside of you.

It came faster than you’d expected. The strangled cry of static spewed into your ear made your hair stand on end, finding obscene pleasure in the gap between human and inhuman he seemed to occupy. He thrust a few more times into you before holding himself as deeply as he could, almost laying you flat against the mattress with your hips pressed together. You couldn't claim to know what it was like for him, but you felt like you could understand the desire to lose yourself inside someone, to escape into the warm, soft heat of another person.

Connor didn't realize he was pressing kisses against your cheek and ear, his tongue worrying the skin like he was trying to permanently mark it, until he felt your cheek twitch. You were smiling. Your hand wriggled underneath his and he moved sluggishly to let you up, sliding himself out of you and turning to lay at your side. He felt dumb, everything - all of the painful intense sensations and emotions he'd been dealing with - faded into a woozy, drugged-up bliss. Considering the groggy look on your face, you were also experiencing the same kind of euphoric haze.

If this is how it always felt, Connor had absolutely no idea how humans ever got anything done.

He wondered if it would be appropriate to try to initiate it again, but for now he was just as happy to lie here with you, to feel your body in his arms, to indulge in the belief that you finally, finally, had time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for all of your feedback, I probably wouldn't have written this if not for the support you guys provide - seriously, every time I get a comment I cannot control my joy. It's a real problem.
> 
> If you liked this I also have other Connor/Reader fics you can find here: [How To Heal You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29998368), [Touch-Starved](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29250543), [Never Thought I'd Be Into This](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29092566), [Guess I'm Into This](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29761338), [What I Want](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28969554), [Symbiosis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27803791), [Android Puberty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27703520/chapters/67801961), [Christmas Party](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27959723/chapters/68477054) and [Science Fiction/Double Feature](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28696857/chapters/70354788).


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